


fractal gyre

by Diamantspitzhacke (RedSoleWrites)



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Clay | Dream-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Dissociation, Gen, Introspection, Intrusive Thoughts, Lava - Freeform, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pandora's Vault Prison, Psychological Horror, Unreliable Narrator, a hint of mystery for you perhaps, an Idea if you will, and i am going to run with it, fun notice i am not a c!dream apologist, however i have a Concept, just a bit! as a treat, no beta we die like pussboy, ohoho it's fun to work with canon isn't it, some tags left off because Spoilers, thank you very much, that's right nova is back with more fun content for you, yes it is important enough that it gets its own tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-22 19:40:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30043722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedSoleWrites/pseuds/Diamantspitzhacke
Summary: Sometimes he feels like a planet rotating the sun, pulled inexplicably closer to that lava, the center of his solar system. He orbits it for now, because he is Dream and Dream is no follower, but just as planets will eventually fall into their suns and explode into a supernova, he knows he cannot go on forever. One day he will collide with it, and it will be beautifully deadly, and the world will fall apart in its wake.Dream knows this like he knows the texture of the rock he sits upon.Still, that day is not today.aka Dream is in prison, but there's something more going on.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 74





	1. Awake

**Author's Note:**

> this lil idea has been rattling around in my head for a hot minute here, so I'm glad that i finally forced myself to start writing it. without further ado, i present to you, fractal gyre.
> 
> also! tw for this ch!! there's some intrusive thoughts that are teetering on the edge of suicidal, so please stay safe everyone! starts around "It had flared briefly" and continues until "Where was he?"

Dream watches Tommy intently as the lava descends from the ceiling once more. His gaze never wavers. His eyes never blink. He stares until his eyes water and stares some more.

The last bit of thick orange magma closes out his vision, flowing down at first gauzy and then glowing and opaque. It hurts to look at for too long, its own miniature sun that Dream cannot help but orbit around, and likewise, he can do nothing but keep looking, chasing those last, blue-tinted imprints of Tommy’s figure that fade from his vision.

Sam will be back later, he knows. The prison’s stoic warden has broken his façade. Dream can practically see the weakness like a fractured mask of porcelain. He should know. Dream is the expert on those.

 _He’s far too transparent_ , he thinks disappointedly. Sam tries to hide things, tries to play his cards close to his chest. Dream can tell from the tense lines of his shoulders and the faint tremble of his tightly clenched fists around his trident.

Sam tries to be hard as diamond, but Dream looks at him and all he sees are the fault lines in a flawed gemstone.

Tommy, though. Tommy does not try to be stone, or diamond, or earth.

Tommy is water, fluid and fierce and showing everything in the harsh spray of a hurricane or the gentle ripples in a pond. Tommy wears his emotions on his sleeve. Tommy adapts to every situation. Tommy looks at whatever container he is given and roils within it until it shatters under the sheer force of him.

And for someone as surrounded by fire and flame and lava as Dream is, Tommy is _intoxicating_. It’s addictive for him. As Dream sank deeper and deeper into the slow roar of lava, he delighted more in the miles-high splashes from an angry Tommy. He craves those moments where, just for a bit, he could feel the sheer breadth of emotion from Tommy in place of the yawning numbness under the lava. Dream wants to watch him boil alive from the strength of his own emotions so maybe, just maybe, he'll feel the lava Dream lives in.

He wants all these things but he can have none.

Sam has just escorted Tommy out of Dream’s cage, and Dream is alone again.

That’s alright. He can be patient.

He sits down placidly and sinks into the lava in his mind.

It greets him with open arms like an old friend.

As the last bits of annoyance and anger melt away, Dream chases those last bits of pure feeling before leaning back into the comfortingly warm _lack_.

It is with no small amount of detachment that Dream ponders the orange in his life.

Before all of this, he was green, lively and springlike. He flitted from tree to tree. The foliage was his friend, holding him close like a secret. He flourished under the sunlight, basking in its distant warmth. Life was good when Dream was green.

He was green like life, but also green like a warning.

Dream was great, he was eternal, immortal, and just as his green was life for him, so too was it a sign for others. As more people arrived in his sanctuary, he used this warning more.

 _Beware_ , it said. _I am more than I seem, I am greater than I look, I am deadlier than you can imagine._

Poisonous, toxic, radioactive.

Dream was less like life and more like death. Plants hide poison behind their simple leaves, and the prettiest may be the deadliest. He no longer fit the green of spring. Dream was too focused to care.

Somehow, though, in that time, his poison-green turned to envy-green.

Dream looked at Tommy, his opposite in so many ways, but his equal in the same amount. Dream looked at Tommy, red and living and thriving. Dream looked at himself, alone in his field of toxin, driving others away from the sheer poison he emanated.

Dream looked at himself, and then looked at Tommy, and he _wanted_.

And now, well.

Now Dream is only defined by orange.

The orange of his prison jumpsuit that fits too loose and itches at the seams.

The orange of the obsidian, heated and so reflective.

And, of course, the wall of orange. The lava. His only constant companion in here.

It’s tantalizing, that orange. He knows its call well. Sometimes he feels like a planet rotating the sun, pulled inexplicably closer to that lava, the center of his solar system. He orbits it for now, because he is Dream and Dream is no follower, but just as planets will eventually fall into their suns and explode into a supernova, he knows he cannot go on forever. One day he will collide with it, and it will be beautifully deadly, and the world will fall apart in its wake.

Dream knows this like he knows the texture of the rock he sits upon.

Still, that day is not today.

Dream will not sink into that lava like he does in his head. He resists, keeps orbiting it. He has plans, after all. Ones that have to predate his demise.

He wants to see the fallout, after all.

Time is a funny thing, in prison.

Dream had a clock for a while there, and it was nice.

He would fall asleep and when he woke it would display the same time and he never could tell if he hadn’t slept or if he’d lost days. To the outside world, time is fleeting, something to be treasured. In prison, though, with the monotony of his life, time is irrelevant. He can sit and wait while the world passes by and it won’t matter.

The ticking was nice, though. A sound other than the low bubbling of lava for him to focus on. It was predictable, regular, constant. He didn’t have many constants left.

The clock is gone, now.

It was consumed by the lava.

Dream had watched it.

It had flared briefly, like a bright flash of something calling out for help, before burning white and sinking into the flow. It was beautiful, in his opinion.

Would he glow that bright when he met his end?

Would he become a beacon, a star, a display for any onlookers as a final message of “I’m here, do not look away,” before fading away into the orange?

Or would he be so silent, so still, abruptly quiet as the ticking of his heart ceased?

Thoughts are fun, in prison.

Where was he?

Time. That’s right.

With the clock gone, Dream was left adrift. He floated in his lava for ages, numb to everything else. He still had very little measure of how much time was passing.

Once, though, he came back to awareness to see a pile of potatoes, automatically dispensed, waiting for him. Enough potatoes for two days.

He felt like he should have been more concerned by that.

Instead, he had drifted back into the lava, content in its embrace.

It’s routine for him now, as much as something without the concept of time can be routine. He eats, drinks, and the rest of his time is spent blissfully numb.

_I wonder when Tommy will come back._

He drifts.

_Will he come back?_

He drifts.

_It’s quiet._

He drifts.

Alone in every sense of the word. Abandoned by friends, by family, by time itself.

There is only Dream in here.

Sometimes there isn’t even that much.


	2. Dozing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dream drifts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the story continues my friends :))))

Dream doesn’t know how long it’s been since he’s seen sunlight. Who needs sunlight, though, when the lava is right there and just as warm?

Dream doesn’t know how long it’s been since he’s seen another person. Who needs people, though, when the lava is the best company of all?

Dream doesn’t know how long it’s been since he’s surfaced for air. Who needs air, though, when the lava bubbles so nicely in his lungs?

He drifts.

How long has it been since he’s spoken to Sapnap or George?

There was once a time when they were the only people he knew. Dream, George, Sapnap, forever inseparable. He can’t remember a time before them. Dream is Athena, sprung fully formed from Zeus’ skull and into the open arms of his best friends.

Well, former best friends.

It’s nobody’s fault but his own.

At first, when Dream realized the influence his friends had over him, he accepted it. Attachment is normal, right? He accepted that he would fight to the death for Sapnap. He accepted that he would start wars for George. They were his best friends, and best friends had each other’s backs.

And then Dream actually went to war for George.

As he stood in the courtroom, mask implacable and arms crossed tightly across his chest, his axe a moment away, he had a moment of horrifying realization. _Is this the power someone else has over me?_

He had never felt weaker. For all the power he had, for all the strength he culminated, for all the wealth he gathered, he could be swayed with nothing but the whisper of a threat to his friends.

 _Weak_ , his subconscious whispered at him. _Weak, foolish mortal._

And Dream never could take being weak in anyone’s eyes.

Though he didn’t dare turn back on his decision to exile Tommy, both because he couldn’t be seen as indecisive and because it put the boy in the perfect position for his future plans, he slowly started distancing himself from Sapnap and George. He planted walls of obsidian a mile high around the crippled nation of L’Manberg and around his heart. He turned his back on his word to the president and on his promises of friendship everlasting. As he escorted Tommy away from his friends, he did the same to himself and hoped that in the end, both would be equally alone.

In exile, Dream saw for the first time the threads of attachment. How they twisted tightly around wrists and necks. And, for the first time, he saw exactly how he could pluck some and pull others to make people dance just how he wanted.

He felt enlightened. He felt trapped.

And so, with the burden of knowledge all geniuses must bear, Dream severed his strings.

It hurt, so, so much at first. Seeing Sapnap wandering like a lost puppy, gazing at George closing off like a poppy at night. He wanted nothing more than to push his mask aside and hug them tight like they’d always done for him.

_Weak. Fragile. Attached._

He would be none of those things. His mask stayed firmly in place. Dream never took a step towards them. They would be fine without him. He was moving on to bigger and better things.

Funny how things turned out.

Now they’re outside, and he’s locked up tight. Some prize this is.

No, no, he will be fine. He’s Dream. He knows his way around things. He can get out of this.

Dream knows he is alone in his cell, knows the most interaction he will get is the punctual _thump_ of a potato being dispensed or the detached watch of Sam through the single security camera. He pulls out one of the empty journals and a pen – one of the few luxuries he has received – and gets to writing.

_In my possession:_

_Revival book (it works!)_

_Favor from Technoblade_

_Tommy_

_Soon to be:_

_Wilbur (control is key)_

_Escape_

_Needed:_

_Line of communication (can I get Sam to send messages? Or a visitor to?)_

He turns the page and resolves to finish this one later.

The next one is already written on.

_⟟⏁ ⍙⟟⌰⌰ ⋏⍜⏁ ⏚⟒ ⌰⍜⋏☌ ⋏⍜⍙_

_⏁⊑⟒ ⌇⟒⍀⎐⟒⍀ ⟟⌇ ⎅⍜⟟⋏☌ ⍙⟒⌰⌰_

_⟟⏁ ⌇⏁⟟⌰⌰ ⍀⟒⍾⎍⟟⍀⟒⌇ ⏃ ☌⎍⟟⎅⟟⋏☌ ⊑⏃⋏⎅, ⏁⊑⍜⎍☌⊑_

So is the next.

_I miss them. It’s been far too long._

And the next.

_I miss him, even though he’s a mess of a man._

And the one after that.

_I’m so glad I got out of there._

And another.

_God I miss you. Can you see this? Are you reading this? Remember the golden days?_

And another.

_Thank goodness that’s over. Bunch of idiots. I’m glad to have left them behind._

He flips past that one to a thankfully blank page. Man, he’s been writing a lot in prison. Dream never expected to be this kind of contemplative person. He was always in the moment, never looking back, because there’s no time to look back when the future is in his hands.

The future is looking kind of far off, though, considering that he’s confined so tightly here.

Dream sighs.

The future is still within his reach. He knows it deep inside his chest like he knows the whorls of his fingertips. Distantly, vaguely, but still ingrained into the fibers of his body.

With those same experienced fingertips, Dream absently fidgets with his pen, flicking it around his fingers dexterously. It’s calming to be able to expend his energy like this. For someone as used to sprinting under the open sky, racing the wind itself, confinement is an unpleasant future. Can Dream take it? Yes, of course. He is strong, he is patient, he will make it work.

Still, the unspent energy thrums through his veins, searching for an outlet that he cannot properly provide. The lava helps him ignore it, sinking deep into the warmth where he can’t feel the burning need to _move_. When he surfaces, though, as he inevitably always must, that feeling returns. _Stand, Dream. Run! Fly through the forests! Skip across the skies! You are the world, and the world cannot be contained._

But Dream is a world trapped on the axis of a globe, and all he can do is spin. So he flips his pen around his fingers and chews its point to a nub and taps his feet to the rhythm of the roiling lava.

He sighs again.

 _Memories_ , he writes.

And then he stops.

The page remains blank besides that simple title in spidery handwriting across the top.

He turns the page.

 _Feelings_ , he writes.

The memories of feelings. When he was loud and brash and full to the brim with the sheer breadth of human emotions. Those were an ache, sore in the way a muscle is sore after a workout. Pleasant, even if only in hindsight.

Now Dream has moved past them. He’s a god, right? He can control who lives and who dies! The blood splattered across every wall of his cell is certainly evidence of that!

The most important thing about gods is that they are not human. They are not mortal. They are above them. And Dream is ambitious. He hungers for more power. So he has given up emotions, amputated that part of his mind and confined it to a faraway corner.

He doesn’t need them anymore, ascended as he is rapidly becoming. They have fallen away in wake of the blissful numbness of the lava in his head.

Still, it’s nice to remember them sometimes. Nostalgic, he supposes. He sets his pen to paper and starts writing.

_Victory, success, when things turn out my way_

_Satisfaction of a job well done_

_When everything lines up without even needing to start it_

These are written boldly, confidently. Dream has no hesitation in the lines of his letters. He stalls, though. His pen strokes grow fainter.

_The little victories_

_Winning an argument_

_Being proven right_

_When someone looks up to me_

And they grow fainter still as he becomes more tentative. The lava feels distant. He feels oddly disconnected from his hand as it continues.

_Having friends_

_Days on the beach with Sapnap and George_

_Meeting new friends_

_Innocent joy without any strings attached_

_Genuine excitement_

_Anticipation for good news_

_Safety_

_Peace_

_Humanity_

And suddenly Dream decides he’s had enough. He slams the book shut, throwing it across the cell. It clatters to the ground after bouncing off the wall. It lays on the purple-black floor, splayed half-open, pages bent under its own weight.

“I’ve had ENOUGH!” Dream yells to himself and to the single security camera attaching him to the outside world. “I don’t need these! I don’t! I am PAST THIS!”

He stomps over to the offending journal, intent on ripping out the page. He looks at it again, though, and hesitates. His hands are tense around the paper. He’s already braced to tear it away and throw it into the lava and let it consume the emotions again. For whatever reason, though, he stops. Instead of destroying this page, he drops the book back to the floor and stomps on it. His foot grinds on the leather binding, crumpling pages and degrading the spine.

Dream steps away and leaves it be after that.

He walks over to the front of his cell and the oozing wall of lava. It’s flecked wonderfully with splotches of red and white, points of inconsistent heat that leave imprints on Dream’s vision whenever he blinks.

Returned to the silence of nothing but low bubbling, Dream lays on the craggy obsidian floor. He splays his hands out as if to grasp at the opposite sides of his cage. His hair flows out behind him in its own warm-toned wave. Backlit by the wall of molten flame, Dream lets the heat carry him away in a tide of numbness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wooo! more introspection! there's gonna be a lot of that! see you all soon in the next chapter!! keep an eye out!  
> -nova

**Author's Note:**

> so, here we are at the beginning of what is liable to be another large fic. i know this story seems to be one thing, but i promise, there's more depth to come! stay tuned, everyone!  
> also, feel free to join the discord! there's some pretty cool people in there, if i do say so myself, and there is space to theorize about what could be happening (it may not be needed yet, but there may be some sleuthing to come)
> 
> :))))


End file.
